Viewing entries tagged with 'questions'

Simple Earth Day Lesson for Low Beginners

Posted by Nancy Callan on 7 April 2016 | 2 Comments

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Who says you can't teach about Earth Day in low beginner ESL? Earth Day is a great time to discuss things we can do to live a more sustainable lifestyle and to practice simple "Do you" questions with low beginner students. 

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Christmas Reading for Low Beginners

Posted by Nancy Callan on 4 December 2013 | 3 Comments

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The Christmas story below is geared for literacy and low beginner ELL students. It is adapted from Callan’s Canadian Holidays for Low Beginner ESL, but is suitable for use in America as well. Further low beginner exercises on Christmas, with pictures, are found in that book. An audio CD and cloze exercise are also available. (For free material for mid-beginner or intermediate level, check out my blog post on Christmas from last year, here. Or why not try a jigsaw lesson for Christmas? Check out Callan's Holiday Jigsaws.)

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Soft Skill: Who Picks Up the Bill?

Posted by Nancy Callan on 21 June 2013 | 0 Comments

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We often think of bargaining language as confined to situations like a garage sale or to the purchase of larger items like cars or homes. One of the most common negotiations most people will engage in at some point is who will pay the bill in a restaurant. Not only are there language and soft skills specific to this situation, many cultural assumptions are thrown into the mix. Countries, as well as the cultures within them, differ in their norms about who should pick up the tab and when. Learning the related idioms and other bargaining language but not cracking this cultural code and developing the soft skills to successfully navigate this interaction can lead to social awkwardness as exemplified in the story below. 

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